


Normal As Blueberry Pie

by RileyC



Series: Getting To Know You, Getting To Know All About You [2]
Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe, Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Identity Porn, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9453155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: And now we find Bruce pursuing his latest obsession(s)...





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's official: This is a series.

==========================================================================================

_Confronted Superman after destruction of $12 million dollar surveillance drone. Superman defiant, not threatening. Implied, strongly, that further attempts to discover where he hangs his cape, as he put it, will be dealt with in similar manner. When questioned how we could know he will not one day act against American interests, Superman replied, quote, "I grew up in Kansas, General. I'm about as American as it gets." Further stated that he is here to help but that it will be on his terms, and that he expected me to convince Washington of his good will. When asked why he thinks they would listen to me, Superman replied, quote, "I don't know, General. Guess I'll just have to trust you."_

==========================================================================================

 

 _Superman defiant not threatening._ When he could shoot fire from his eyes and obliterate half a city without breaking a sweat, was that really a distinction anyone could draw?

Bruce thought about that as he examined every word of General Swanwick’s report for some hidden meaning. He wasn’t convinced any assessment of Superman from a military source was to be accepted at face value. Colonel Nathan Hardy was reported to have told his men that Superman was not their enemy during the invasion of Smallville. All well and good, but Colonel Hardy’s faith in the alien hadn’t saved his life. Not to mention how could any military, any government look at a being like that and not think they possessed a weapon of incalculable power, not want to exploit it?It was possible he was being cynical, of course.

 

He sighed, stretched his aching back, aching everything, and reached for the cup of coffee Alfred had left him. He pulled a face as he took a sip of the cold liquid and set it down again, leaned in to dissect the paragraph some more. Just over a hundred words and this was the most tangible data yet provided on the alien. Bruce automatically dismissed all the biased hyperbole the _Daily Planet_  trotted out on a steady basis-- _On his world, the S means hope_. On this world real investigative journalists would be working their butts off to dig up everything they could find on Hope Boy and grill him until he came up with answers that didn’t sound like something off a cheesy greeting card.

 

And what the hell did _that_  mean, the alien’s claim that he had grown up in Kansas?

 

He located his file of General Zod’s original message, transmitted to everyone around the globe, played it again:

 

_“You are not alone... My name is General Zod. I come from a world far from yours. I have journeyed across an ocean of stars to reach you. For some time, your world has sheltered one of my citizens. I request that you return this individual to my custody. For reasons unknown, he has chosen to keep his existence a secret from you. He will have made efforts to blend in. He will look like you, but he is not one of you. To those of you who may know of his current location: the fate of your planet rests in your hands. To Kal-El, I say this: surrender within 24 hours, or watch this world suffer the consequences.”_

It was a hoax--that had been his first thought on hearing that voice, made all the more eerie and menacing for its matter of fact delivery. The alien overlord about to devastate your world should sound like Darth Vader, not your cable installer.

 

His initial thought had been that this Zod was in pursuit of a fugitive who had escaped custody and fled to Earth. Strip away Zod’s threat at the end of the message and the rest of it could be interpreted as a request to extradite a suspected or convicted criminal.

 

If Superman had grown up in Kansas, though, if he had lived there all his life, that could put a different spin on things. What if he was a refugee? Was that a subtle or significant difference? Fingers tapping a haphazard tattoo on the desk, Bruce considered those fine points. Why Earth? That ship they'd found on Ellesmere Island was pretty solid evidence Kryptonians had come here before. Had that been the only contact prior to Kal-El's arrival? Bruce groaned and buried his face in his hands for a moment. He was _not_ going to go down the route of fringe theories about ancient astronauts.

 

He sat up, scrubbed his face, and closed the audio file and stared at that sentence again, the casual claim to being raised in America’s heartland, playing baseball and going to the prom. Again, even if an alien menace was sheltered here on Earth, how could it come from somewhere as ordinary a Kansas? It should have taken refuge in some remote, inaccessible corner of the world. Not someplace like Smallville.

 

Smallville… Even the name sounded like something out of Norman Rockwell. If the town hadn’t been ground zero for the alien invasion, who would have ever known it existed?

 

He pulled up a map of Kansas and located the town, found a web site for it. Nothing jumped out at him as significant in any way. The only big thing to ever happen there _was_  the Kryptonians. And, granted, that would be sufficient for anyone. Even Gothamites would have looked twice. If Superman had been hiding among them for who knew how many years, shouldn’t there be some trace, some clue? He fucking _flew_ , for Christ’s sake. How could you miss that?

 

Scrolling down, Bruce found a link to _The Smallville Ledger_  and clicked. A hot story for a paper like that was probably who won a blue ribbon for their pie or how many pigs were in a litter born to Farmer Brown’s prize-winning sow. Worth a look, though, he decided, his expectations fulfilled by the current front page where the big story was how Bill Perkins was stepping down as president of the local co-op after twelve years. The other breaking news was how that smoke everyone saw yesterday was just a shed fire out at the Dawson place; “Verne,” said Millie Dawson when questioned by Chief Carter, “was in there with his torch, working on his project, and I guess some sparks got away from him.” That there was no follow-up, beyond a mention that Verne had escaped with only minor burns, implied everyone in town knew about Verne’s project and weren’t that surprised he set the shed on fire.

 

And this--this embodiment of everything cornball, was where the alien came from? He could not get his head around that.

 

He scrolled down, checking if there might be access to any archives. No luck there, but a photograph popped off the page.

 

It was in a feature called _Neighborly;_ Smallville’s idea of a gossip column, Bruce supposed. The brief item recounted that native son Clark Kent, now a big time reporter for _The Daily Planet_ , had been in town for a couple of days to visit his mother. Asked how he liked life in the big city, Kent said, “Golly jeepers, it sure is different from slopping hogs on the farm." Or words to that effect, at any rate.

 

Maybe he could cut Clark Kent some slack, though, just a sliver. Anyone who took time off from his busy career to go visit his mother had to have one or two good qualities.

 

Clark Kent: The pain in the ass reporter from Lex Luthor’s party the other night. Sanctimonious, self-righteous--the thesaurus was infinite. Prattling on about civil liberties when his paper, his city, worshiped at the altar of a demigod answerable to no one.

 

The voice of his conscience--it always sounded like Alfred--pointed out there was some truth in Kent’s accusations. They wouldn’t have stung and gotten under his skin otherwise.

 

What did Kent want, an exclusive interview with The Batman? Was he trying to compete with Lois Lane and her Superman exclusives? Tempting to believe that was Kent’s motivation. Easy to dismiss if that’s all it was. Gut instinct told Bruce something else.

 

Would Kent listen, show any inclination to understand? Chin propped on his fist, Bruce studied the face in the photograph. It wasn’t a great picture; the lighting was bad and it looked posed, like a tourist snapshot. Kent and an older woman--the mother?--stood outside a diner, neither looking all that thrilled at being pestered. Bruce scored Kent another point on that.

 

He supposed it was an honest face, if you believed in that kind of thing. Kent could well have mastered the art of deception and learned how to reek of integrity, of sympathy. Useful skills for an ambitious reporter.

 

There had been no evidence of skilled subterfuge the other night. Kent had been blunt, confrontational; far too convincing in his role of idealistic crusader for it to be anything but true. Someone who grew up in Smallville, Kansas probably did believe good and evil had clear lines of demarcation. There were no shades of grades, no concept of situational ethics, in Kent’s black and white world.

 

What did Bruce care anyway? Let Kent believe it was that simple and the good guys always won. Life would knock it out of him soon enough. _That_  was a black and white certainty.

 

Still, Bruce was surprised to realize he took no satisfaction in that knowledge. He remembered what it was like to believe you could make a difference, could make a better world. He had buried that deep inside but it still twitched with signs of life every now and again.

 

Would Kent listen? Would he believe if Bruce told him it hadn’t always been like this? That once upon a time…

 

Bruce straightened up, annoyed at himself for wasting time like this. Clark Kent was a clue, nothing more.

 

What did Kent know about Superman? Was that what lay behind his defense of the alien? That they both had Smallville in common could not be a coincidence.

 

There was something more, too. The gala isolated and highlighted in his mind, Bruce replayed the moment when Lex Luthor had joined them. Had sought them out? It had struck him as deliberate at the time and that conviction was growing stronger by the moment. Lex Luthor had wanted him to meet Clark Kent, and vice versa. There had been a sense that this event was a source of unwholesome glee for Lex, in fact. True, on the best days Lex Luthor was squirrely to the nth degree, but this had been something different.

 

“Who are you? And what does Lex Luthor know?”

 

“Conversing with yourself now?” It was Alfred coming up behind him, silent as fog and bringing fresh coffee and sandwiches. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

 

Bruce side-eyed him. “Why are you always creeping around like that?”

 

“Oh, do forgive my manners. Proper introductions haven’t been made. Pot, meet Kettle; Kettle -- Pot.” Alfred poured coffee and pulled up a second chair. “Who are we obsessing about now?” he murmured, eyes on the screen.

 

“ _W_ e are not obsessing. We are gathering intel.”

 

“To-may-to, to-mah-to. Clark Kent? You met him at the party, him and that intriguing woman.”

 

That intriguing woman was another mystery to solve. At first glance, she had reminded him so much of Selina and Talia that it had completely thrown him off his game for a moment. Something about this woman surpassed them both though. All he could say was that she had an aura about her that was unlike anyone else. Beyond that, he had no explanation. For the moment.

 

“She is your type.”

 

“I don’t have a type.”

 

Alfred snorted. “He isn’t.” He nodded at the screen. “Mind you, he didn’t back down when you growled at him. That says something.”

 

“I did not growl at him.”

 

“You all but called him a whippersnapper and told him to stay off your lawn.”

 

“You know, I can fire you at any time.”

 

“Try.” Unimpressed and unconcerned, Alfred took a sip of coffee. He offered the plate of sandwiches to Bruce. “What do we know about this Mr. Kent?”

 

Bruce took a bite of sandwich--chicken salad--and waved at the screen.

 

“Surely we can do better.”

 

“Knock yourself out,” Bruce said around a mouthful of chicken, walnut, and apple.

 

Clark Kent didn’t strike him as someone with a truckload of dark secrets to hide. On the other hand, if he did know something about the alien, if he had learned this in confidence and promised to never speak of it, Bruce could see him clamming up. He could be made to talk. Anyone could--even The Batman.

 

Would Kent believe that Bruce would prefer it never came to that?

 

Moot point. Probably. Given how seldom he went to Metropolis, it was unlikely they would ever run into each other again. And he really didn't see Kent turning up in Gotham anytime soon. If Kent did decide to man up and come over here, see what Gotham was really like, that could be a game-changer. Bruce didn't think he'd hold his breath, though.

 

~*~

 **Next time:** _"What are you doing here?"_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Our title this time comes from the song, "A Wonderful Guy," from _South Pacific_ , lyrics by Richard Rodgers:
> 
>  
> 
> _I'm as corny as Kansas in August,_  
>  I'm as normal as blueberry pie..."


End file.
